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Peter
Jesserer Smith, Mar. 17, 2017
Christians
are still looking for the federal government to take meaningful action to
restore them to their homes and livelihoods.
AMMAN,
Jordan — One year ago, the U.S. government declared Christians in Iraq and
Syria — along with Yazidis and other religious groups — were victims of an
ongoing genocide perpetrated by the Islamic State terrorist organization
(ISIS). Advocates commemorating the March 17, 2016, declaration have hailed it
as a critical first step, but say much more needs to be done.
Three
days after the U.S. House of Representatives passed a unanimous resolution
declaring “the atrocities perpetrated by [ISIS] against religious and ethnic
minorities in Iraq and Syria include war crimes, crimes against humanity and
genocide,” then-Secretary of State John Kerry made a similar declaration on
behalf of the federal government. He stated that the terror group “is
responsible for genocide against groups in areas under its control, including
Yazidis, Christians and Shia Muslims.”
“[ISIS]
is genocidal by self-proclamation, by ideology and by actions — in what it
says, what it believes and what it does,” he said.
In Defense of
Christians, a Washington-based human-rights organization representing
Middle-East Christians and other religious minorities, helped spearhead the
fight to get the federal government to recognize that ISIS was carrying out
genocide in Syria and Iraq.
Phillipe
Nassif, executive director of In Defense of Christians, told the Register that
Kerry’s genocide declaration made a “pretty big difference” in shedding light
on the eradication of Christians, Yazidis, Shiite Muslims and other minority
groups in the areas under ISIS’ control.
“It
used a term that needed to be used to define what was happening to these
people,” he said.
Having
them recognized as genocide victims has helped build further political pressure
to do more. Nassif said IDC is advocating for the establishment of safe zones
in Iraq and an autonomous zone for them to have additional future security.
Many
Christians and Yazidis have started to repopulate their villages liberated by
the Iraqi army, but others are still afraid to return to villages occupied by
Shiite militias, or Kurdish militias, which have their own competing agendas
and interests in the region.
IDC
is also advocating for the establishment of safe zones along Syria’s border
with Jordan and Turkey, in order to relieve pressure on Lebanon, which is
officially 40% Christian and has the only Christian head of state in the Middle
East.
Nassif
said it would be a disaster for Christians and the rest of the Middle East if
Lebanon, a nation that already experienced a sectarian civil war, imploded due
to the strain of having 2 million refugees amid a nation of 4 million citizens.
On
the Ground
For
Christians in Iraq and Syria, the genocide declaration has not greatly altered
the facts on the ground. While the Iraqi army fights a duel to the death with
ISIS in western Mosul, and the U.S. prepares to help Syrian Kurdish and Arab
fighters take back Raqqa, ISIS’ other capital, the genocide of Christians,
Yazidis and other minority populations is still ongoing. Members of those
populations who fled still have not returned, and thousands of Yazidi women, as
well as many Christian women, are still held captive by ISIS as sex slaves.
Andrew
Walther, vice president of communications for the Knights of Columbus, told the
Register that Christian leaders in Iraq and Syria have told the Knights they
are more encouraged that the U.S. will exert more positive efforts on their
behalf.
The
Knights have also been working closely with Catholic leaders in Syria and Iraq,
announcing they raised and disbursed $2 million toward the general relief
efforts of the Melkite Greek Catholic Archdiocese of Aleppo, the Syriac
Catholic Patriarchate and the Chaldean Catholic Archdiocese of Erbil.
“They
see some very promising signs with the new administration,” he said. The
problem with the genocide declaration thus far, Walther said, is that the
federal government during the Obama administration never followed up “with any
meaningful action.”
Walther
said that, as far as he is aware, the displaced Christian populations they work
with have not received any kind of financial assistance from either the U.S. or
the United Nations following the genocide designation. The main financial
assistance for Christian victims of genocide, he said, comes from Christians in
the U.S. and around the world who have generously chosen to support the
victims, such as through the Knights’ ChristiansatRisk.org portal.
Calls
to Action
Bishop
Gregory Mansour, the Maronite Catholic bishop of Brooklyn, New York, and a
human-rights champion for Middle-East Christians, told the Register that the
genocide declaration is still as true today as it was last year. When he and
other advocates for Middle-East Christians pushed the resolution a year ago,
they wanted to see it followed up with action that would land those who support
ISIS or fund its activities before a court of law, or become liable to severe
economic penalties.
“We
need to start prosecuting ISIS at every level,” he said. So far, that has not
happened.
The
Genocide Coalition, a partnership of organizations and advocates for
Christians, Yazidis and other religious minorities in Iraq and Syria targeted
by ISIS for genocide, has been urging President Trump’s administration to take
actions that would “secure, stabilize and revitalize the ancestral homelands of
indigenous religious minority communities” and to direct national security or
law enforcement agencies to “use all available means to bring to justice both
the perpetrators of this genocide and their accessories,” including “the
material cooperators (collaborators, affiliates, financiers and facilitators)
of ISIS, al-Qaida and their affiliates.”
Edward
Clancy, director of outreach of Aid to the Church in Need USA, told the Register that ISIS
will have achieved its goal of genocide if those groups do not go back to their
homes. So far, the surveys from displaced Iraqi Christians show that 50% want
to return to their homes on the Nineveh Plain; before the Iraqi army began its
rollback of ISIS in northern Iraq, only 10% wanted to go back. But Clancy said
that there will have to be “an intensive effort to help Christians rebuild.”
Clancy
said Iraq needs its own Marshall Plan — the post-World War II economic rebuilding
plan for Europe devised in part to prevent communism from taking hold in the
population — and Syria will need it, as well, because the infrastructure is in
chaos.
He
said, “If all is said and done, and the Christians don’t go back, then ISIS
won.”
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